I have gotten a number of emails with info and links regarding what we can expect this winter and where to get information as close to “real-time” as is possible by county, state, and federal organizations. Again, the most accurate, immediate information generally will come from our community, but the info and links I will post here will help with plans and hopefully, advance warnings. Technology has come a very long way in predicting the potential challenges since the Basin Fire. In addition to posting the links in this post, I will be creating a new category for “Soberanes Fire Winter Information” in my links on the sidebar to your right. I will put an asterisk in front to keep it close to the top. This post contains reports by a couple of people, and thus it will be LONG, but chuck full of important information for this winter.
First, from Martha Diehl:
“I know we are all working on getting ready for winter, especially after this wake-up call rain we just had. I know Ken & I are hard at work trying to make sure we have the best predictions possible. Here is my report:
I recently received this list of useful public sites for raw data about winter risks from our excellent and hard working local National Weather Service (NWS) person, Mark Strudley. These links show some of the data that he and his colleagues will be using to create forecasts and decide when to issue watches (the primary early warning we will get) and warnings. We are trying to make as much of this information as possible available online so everyone involved can see it, in particular so everyone will understand how important it is to heed the watches and not wait for the warning! The following info comes from Mark:
‘Soberanes NWS page:
http://www.wrh.noaa.gov/wrh/postwildfire/burnArea.php?wfo=mtr&fire=2016_Soberanes
USGS debris flow page:
http://landslides.usgs.gov/hazards/postfire_debrisflow/2016/20160722soberanes/
AHPS stream gaging page:
http://water.weather.gov/ahps2/index.php?wfo=mtr
Naval postgraduate school (NPS) runs meteorological stations at Granite Canyon Station (crab shack) and at Point Sur. Both stations have existing rain gages, that apparently only report when it is raining (and not otherwise). These sites and their data can be found here:
Granite Canyon: http://met.nps.edu/~lind/profiler/gcn_sfc.gif <http://met.nps.edu/%7Elind/profiler/gcn_sfc.gif>
Point Sur: http://met.nps.edu/~lind/profiler/pts_sfc.gif <http://met.nps.edu/%7Elind/profiler/pts_sfc.gif>
We will try to webscrape their data automatically so that the data is always in our system, allowing us to more efficiently base watches and warnings off this information (and calculate intensity). If ingest from these 2 stations proves successful, these 2 stations combined with the Big Sur RAWS rain gage may give us adequate coverage along the coast. We also have satellite transmitting rain gages at Whale Point and Highlands Peak to the south.
Whale Point: http://www.wrcc.dri.edu/weather/whpt.html
Highlands Peak: http://wrcc.dri.edu/weather/hipk.html
Granite Canyon: http://met.nps.edu/~lind/profiler/gcn_sfc.gif <http://met.nps.edu/%7Elind/profiler/gcn_sfc.gif>
Point Sur: http://met.nps.edu/~lind/profiler/pts_sfc.gif <http://met.nps.edu/%7Elind/profiler/pts_sfc.gif>
We will try to webscrape their data automatically so that the data is always in our system, allowing us to more efficiently base watches and warnings off this information (and calculate intensity). If ingest from these 2 stations proves successful, these 2 stations combined with the Big Sur RAWS rain gage may give us adequate coverage along the coast. We also have satellite transmitting rain gages at Whale Point and Highlands Peak to the south.
Whale Point: http://www.wrcc.dri.edu/weather/whpt.html
Highlands Peak: http://wrcc.dri.edu/weather/hipk.html
Orographics can increase rain rates. Simply put, when approaching rain clouds collide with the Santa Lucias and rise up their coastal flank, rain rates can increase as the clouds move inland and to higher elevations. Thus rain rates could be higher by the time precip reaches, for example, The Hoist or Botchers Gap. So, it would be advantageous to also have rain gages at elevation.’
Ken & I and many others are continuing to work with Mark to make sure he has the best tools possible to refine his forecasts. To that end, the CPOA has agreed to fund the purchase of one new stream gauge to be placed where Mark suggests to monitor one of our coastal streams in the burned area since our streams behave differently than the rivers that currently have gauges on them. We are very grateful to the CPOA and the generous donors who support their activities.
Mark has been working with private landowners to identify a useful site or sites for the additional gauge he has obtained. Once that is arranged he will tell us how critical it will be to add additional weather stations that can transmit the rate of rainfall in real time as discussed above. However there is no downside to having more data points, and this is something that individuals or organizations inclined to help could do privately and make the information available to the NWS. The following equipment models will successfully interface with the NWS with the ability to feed data to them via satellite:
Sutron ($5524): this is for a complete rain gage setup from Sutron (solar power, GOES communication)
Sutron ($3933): this is for a Sutron rain gage setup, assuming separate purchase of solar power and mounting hardware, in the hopes there are cheaper vendors for these items (probably not).
Campbell Sci ($6197): this is for a complete Campbell Sci rain gage setup (solar power, GOES). A little more expensive, and the software to program it is not freeware.
Note that these are not for complete weather stations…just rain gages. Campbell Sci makes an excellent complete weather station (twice the price of the attached quote, but has many different sensors on it), same as that used for the project RAWS gages.
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Sutron ($5524): this is for a complete rain gage setup from Sutron (solar power, GOES communication)
Sutron ($3933): this is for a Sutron rain gage setup, assuming separate purchase of solar power and mounting hardware, in the hopes there are cheaper vendors for these items (probably not).
Campbell Sci ($6197): this is for a complete Campbell Sci rain gage setup (solar power, GOES). A little more expensive, and the software to program it is not freeware.
Note that these are not for complete weather stations…just rain gages. Campbell Sci makes an excellent complete weather station (twice the price of the attached quote, but has many different sensors on it), same as that used for the project RAWS gages.
If you decide to obtain & install one of these devices, please contact Mark so he can arrange to access the data. I will put his contact info below. Feel free to contact me if I can help in any way!”
That is it for Martha. I will add the links mentioned above to my new link category for ease in retrieval, except those which have been in my weather links for many years now. I won’t be moving them into the new categories. Because this post is already longer than usual, I have divided it up into two parts, and will post the next one tomorrow am.